


Sustenance

by indigo_inks



Category: Original Work
Genre: Developing Friendships, Food, Gen, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25712581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigo_inks/pseuds/indigo_inks
Summary: A woman alive in the after-times visits an abandoned town in search of food. What - and whom - she finds is not what she is expecting.
Relationships: Original Female Character & Original Male Character, Post-Apocalyptic Food Truck Owner & Hungry Wasteland Traveler
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14
Collections: Original Works Opportunity 2020





	Sustenance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inquisitor_tohru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/gifts).



They’re all the same, Lupita thinks. All of them. Each and every gosh darned town in once-upon-a-time Middle America.

There’s the wide, straight road intended for four or more lanes of vehicular traffic. Then, flanking the road, at easy driving distance from one another, like you were supposed to stop at the first, and then the next, and then the next, and then the next after that, are all the fast food restaurants. Lupita can still remember their names from once-upon-a-time: MacDonalds, Chick-Fil-A, Wendys, Burger King, Waffle House, KFC, and Five Guys.

She doesn’t expect to find anything to eat inside any of the ruined restaurants, but she tries anyway. On foot like she is, the in and out, in and out, in and out journey that would’ve taken no more than a few minutes by car takes her the better part of an after-times day. And exactly as she’d expected, she has nothing to show for her labors, not a single, fossilized hamburger or shriveled French fry.

She isn’t surprised, but she’s disappointed. She’s hungry, after all. It’s the hunger that keeps her on the move.

Further down along the same road, slightly further out from the part of town where most of the folks actually used to live, is a Walmart. Those superstores were intended to be one-stop shopping experiences, Lupita remembers, and they used to sell _everything_. Even stuff that nobody actually needed. Naturally, they were the first to be cleaned out by the looters and the scavengers in the after-times.

Still. Walmarts are _big_. One rare occasions Lupita finds something that all the others before her had missed, and when she does, it’s kept her going until she finds something else that all the others before her had missed. Why does she keep going? She doesn’t know. But it’s better than stopping.

The Walmart parking lot is a treacherous, desolate sea of rubble and cracked pavement. Lupita has to pick her way through carefully – so carefully, in fact, that she gives the beat up vehicle parked directly in front of the broken doors no mind—

“Nothing in there, honey! I got the very last can of beans,” a voice calls out.

Lupita startles, whirls around. The side of the truck is open, and there’s a man inside the truck, and he’s…he’s…

_He’s cooking. In a food truck._

Lupita recalls that she knew food trucks from once-upon-a-time, too, but her mouth is watering so badly she can’t convince her mouth to form words.

“I’ve got the beans and some sausage on the boil,” the man continues, easy as you please, like this isn’t the after-times and folks actually pay for food with _money_. “The beans are Bush’s Homestyle, and the sausage is…uh, well. They say you should never ask what goes into the sausage, and _I_ say that that’s exactly right!”

Lupita just stares.

“Can’t talk? Are you hungry?”

He doesn’t even have to ask. Lupita just nods.

Thankfully, the man is generous and shares his food with her equally. They find a bare patch of parking lot to sit down on, and it’s almost like once-upon-a-time in Middle America, back when the worst Lupita had to worry about with regards to food was _which_ restaurant or food truck she might wish to patronize. She gorges herself shamelessly on Bush’s baked beans and mystery-sausage – it’s the first time her belly has felt full since the first year of the after-times.

“What do you want in return for the food?” Lupita asks when her mouth is free for speaking again. The brown-sugar flavor of the bean sauce lingers on her lips, and bits of sausage stick in-between her front teeth. She feels relaxed. Food truck man is not a bad-looking man, and if he asks…

“Oh, no, no, none of that. Nothing for me,” the man says easily, waving a hand in dismissal. Clearly, he knows how things work in the after-times among travelers like Lupita. “Your company’s plenty. And I’m gay,” he adds, just in case she hasn’t understood, then pauses. His face turns pensive. “The road does get lonely, you know.”

Lupita does know. And perhaps because of that solitude it takes her a while before she realizes the full implications of what the man has told her. “Does your truck…does it _drive_?”

“Do you think I carry it with me?”

Lupita just stares.

“Sorry, that was a joke. Name’s Todd, by the way.” The man holds out a hand to shake.

“Lupita.” Lupita takes Todd’s hand.

“The road’s shorter when the ride’s shared. Would you like to ride with me, Lupita?”

He doesn’t even have to ask.


End file.
